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Federica Mogherini, the European foreign policy chief, is the EU’s highest ranking female political leader. Pictured: Federica Mogherini is seen during an official visit to Tunis, 30 March 2019. Photo credit: European Commission/Ramin Mazur 

Currently, most of those positions are held by men with Federica Mogherini, the high representative for foreign affairs, an exception. 

While men dominate top EU posts, the proportion of women sitting in the European Parliament has more than doubled since the first directly elected MEPs took office back in 1979.

Ahead of the European Elections from May 23-26, which countries have the highest share of female candidates? According to the European Parliament website, 50 percent of candidates in Italy, France and Slovenia are female.

Hungary and Malta have the lowest share with just 21 and 22 percent respectively. Data was not available for Belgium, Finland, Portugal and Sweden. In the outgoing session, 76.9 percent of Finland’s MEPs were women.

This chart shows the share of female candidates by country in the 2019 European Election

This post originally appeared on the blog of data firm Statista and is republished here with permission.